West Berlin citizens standing on the Berlin Wall in front of the Brandeburg Gate, 1989.
(Stringer/Courtesy Reuters) On June 29, after almost five months of discussion and preparation, the East German Communist régime denounced an agreement for public debates to be held in both German states between its spokesmen and the leaders of West Germany's opposition Social Democratic Party. The plan for a high-level confrontation, the first of its kind since Germany was partitioned at the end of the Second World War, was the result of an East German initiative. It had aroused intense interest and some exaggerated hopes among Germans on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
The East German Socialist Unity, or Communist, Party (S.
Source URL: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/europe/1966-10-01/new-perspectives-behind-wall